Runeborn

Not my favorite genre but this one has some pretty good hooks and generates the 'one more' feeling keeping glued to the screen. Excellent stuff when you got a moment to spare. High quality and overall good design everywhere. I can't name anything bad really except this is no Bejeweled, it has a actual learning curve as you need to learn how the gems connect and when they don't. Add scrolls, trinkets and amulets and other mechanics and you got lots to ponder on. Rest is RNG and what a randomizer it is. You get these runs where you get trinkets and runes where you feel invincible until the ever increasing targets catches up with you, and then next run you have something entirely different and you again get the feeling which in turn gives you a satisfying 'there are many ways to get somewhere' in this game. Illusion? Hard to say with with my hours but i like it if it's so. I really dislike it when RNG based games have moments early on when you realize you must go for OP builds that are the only ones that get you somewhere but so far i have not yet seen something like that.

Incredibly simple at the start, it almost ruins itself by gatekeeping Passive upgrades (called trinkets) REQUIRED for certain classes through random unlockables. I'm 28 hours in and I am still unlocking access to Trinkets that enable a Dark+Ice build. It's disrespectful. Once you start unlocking the actual game....it is fun. Most of the game revolves around getting an artifact that pivots your direction of play, then removing the other colors off the grid. I'm still miffed that I basically played a 5 hour tutorial just to enable the Meditation class to somewhat function. My real negative experience are some of the Trinkets. a few don't work as described. Aiva states Wild Runes morph into a random element. Chromatika treats a random element as if it is a Wild Rune. HOWEVER, Opal Locket gives a multiplier based off the number of Wild Runes on the field and Opal Locket doesn't count the Chromatika Runes. I lost a match because of the inconsistent rules. I assumed that if Opal Locket didn't count my runes from Chromatika, Aiva wouldn't either. 6/10 good game with several flaws.

It somehow feels boring and not engaging.

Slot machine is fun

A great Roguelike!!! Big numbers go brrrrrr

The runs and the progression are artificially tedious in almost every aspects. The worst problem is that the gameplay is too much luck dependent ; it's evident in the first runs and most reviewers are telling it's even worse later in the game. Sorry but games are meant to be fun :(